OraSure, others jump on HIV articles

RussBritt

LOS ANGELES (MarketWatch) -- Shares of OraSure Technologies and of other medical diagnostic firms climbed Thursday, as studies in the New England Journal of Medicine called for more vigorous HIV screening.

Two studies published in Thursday's edition of the New England Journal found expanding routine viral screening would be a cost-effective way to reduce transmission and improve public health.

Testing in areas where there's low prevalence of the virus that causes AIDS is affordable and prolongs the life of people carrying HIV without knowing it, the studies found.

The studies -- one from Duke University and the Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System, and the other from researchers at Harvard and Yale -- were conducted independently of each other but show similar results.

Both sets of researchers are calling for doctors and policymakers to expand HIV counseling, testing and referrals, especially now that a diagnosis more often yields a chronic disease managed with cocktails of antiretroviral drugs rather than a death sentence.

"While the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's guidelines are that routine screenings are effective in settings where there is a 1 percent or above prevalence of disease, our analysis showed that such screening at much lower prevalence levels would provide important benefits," said Dr. Gillian Sanders, lead author of the Duke and Palo Alto report, in a statement. "In addition, we found this screening would be cost-effective and in line with other commonly accepted screening programs."

A. David Paltiel, associate professor of health policy and administration at Yale and lead author of the second study, said: "The publication of these papers represents a golden opportunity to jump-start the expansion of HIV testing services in the United States."

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